Kimi Raikkonen may have strengthened his world championship credentials by triumphing from pole position in the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, but the real joy of the race was that of countryman
Heikki Kovalainen, who escaped concussed and heavily shaken but thankfully otherwise seemingly unscathed from a terrifying high-speed accident when his McLaren-Mercedes broke just after he had taken the lead of the race.
There was drama, in fact, even before the lights went out, when front row sitter
Fernando Alonso got onto the grass and very nearly clouted the pit wall coming around to the grid, as the Spaniard attempted to warm his tyres up a little over-enthusiastically.
Whether his heart was ion his mouth or not, he had composed himself again in time for the start as he vaulted off the line, but
Felipe Massa was even better, and by the time the front-runners got to turn one, the Brazilian had passed his
Renault rival into second place, making it a
Ferrari one-two within mere moments of the grand prix having got underway.
Lewis Hamilton was another man on the move, charging past
Robert Kubica into fourth, but in doing so he aggressively chopped across the nose of fast-starting
McLaren team-mate Kovalainen, who then had to get off the throttle to avoid running into the Briton and was left to unsuccessfully try the outside line around the BMW-Sauber instead, consequently staying in sixth place.
Further back, though, later around the opening lap there was further excitement as
Adrian Sutil ambitiously tried a move up the inside of
David Coulthard, but with two wheels on the grass it was never going to work and the
Force India predictably made light contact with the
Red Bull Racing machine and went spinning across the track, where he was ploughed into by the luckless
Sebastian Vettel, himself receiving the unwelcome attentions one of the Super Aguris, caught up in the chain reaction.
